Facebook Comment Prompts Arrests In Cyberbullying Suicide Case 734
An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times reports on the arrests of two girls, ages 12 and 14, who allegedly harassed another 12-year-old girl who committed suicide. The girls are facing third-degree felony charges, and the police involvement was spurred by a comment on Facebook by the older of the two. 'In Internet shorthand it began "Yes, ik" — I know — "I bullied Rebecca nd she killed herself." The writer concluded that she didn't care, using an obscenity to make the point and a heart as a perverse flourish. Five weeks ago, Rebecca Ann Sedwick, a seventh grader in Lakeland in central Florida, jumped to her death from an abandoned cement factory silo after enduring a year, on and off, of face-to-face and online bullying. ... Brimming with outrage and incredulity, the sheriff said in a news conference on Tuesday that he was stunned by the older girl's Saturday Facebook posting. But he reserved his harshest words for the girl's parents for failing to monitor her behavior, after she had been questioned by the police, and for allowing her to keep her cellphone.'"
This (Score:5, Interesting)
But he reserved his harshest words for the girl's parents for failing to monitor her behavior
Children are sociopaths until they learn better / their frontal lobes finish developing. It's the parents who are at fault here.
Re:This (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all children are like that, and many adults are themselves sociopaths.
It's the parents who are at fault here.
Hardly.
Why was this upvoted? Feelings win over brain. (Score:3)
Science has long proven that what parent.parent said is true. Children's brain develop. That is why - except for maybe in parts of the US and the Internet public - children are not charged as adults in court. You can easily Google some interesting lectures etc. on this topic. Not that common sense wouldn't have told our grandparents - today everything needs a "scientific study" unless it already serves our worst, lowest instincts, in which case any stupid comment is accepted as true.
Re:This (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the internet should be regulated like Alcohol and Tobacco, where access is permitted only once a certain age of maturity has been reached.
Not only would that be completely unenforceable, but it's also an awful, draconian idea.
We've let them use the internet, and this "bullying" epidemic is what it has led up to.
So you suggest that we punish everyone (in a certain group) because of some bullies and an imaginary epidemic. Not sure I agree.
Re:This (Score:4, Insightful)
So you suggest that we punish everyone (in a certain group) because of some bullies and an imaginary epidemic.
Just like we do with alcohol, tobacco, firearms, pot, and not buying overpriced health insurance. Can we all finally agree that it's wrong to have the government punish the innocent?
Re:This (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This (Score:5, Informative)
The truth is that kids have their own little privately-run societies in school (on a social plane) that the adults are quite powerless to have any real control over.
You can find similar social structures in prisons, which calls into question the fundamental design of the public school system.
The kid's presence there is largely wasted effort, so they invent oft-destructive social games to use up their intellect and energy. This suggests that making school more rigourous & purposeful.
Specifically:
1) more difficult academics for the kids that can take it
2) meaningful job training in later grades for those whose interests lie elsewhere
We also need to nuke 'no child left behind' and anything that looks like it, so we can acknowledge that different children have different interests & capabilities, and handle them accordingly.
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I would also add that we need smaller classrooms. It's easy to get distracted when the teacher has to give a generic lecture for 30+ kids. When I was in high school we'd play euchre in most classes and the teachers wouldn't even know. Some kids would chew dip, some kids would sleep. It just wasn't possible for the teachers to ensure that everyone was doing something constructive or paying attention. Class size is one of the most important distinctions between a crappy school and a good one, and unfortunatel
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Re:This (Score:4, Insightful)
Who know who doesn't get bullied? Kids with backbones. Because it's no fun to bully kids who stand up for themselves.
Granting for the sake of argument that the above is true, how does one "stand up for oneself" against a flood of anonymous or pseudonymous nasty comments posted on the Internet?
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Re:This (Score:4, Insightful)
You know who got bullied a lot in my school? The kid with the pacemaker. Please tell me how he was supposed to stand up for himself. Also in my experience the kids who fought back ended up with the bullies coming back in groups.
The problem is the kids who bully and not the victims.
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You are exactly right! Like many of us here, I was bullied relentlessly for most of my school life. Teachers were useless, and my parre
Re:This (Score:4, Insightful)
It was always a lie, mostly spread by bullies. Human beings are what they are because words are so powerful.
Standard bullying tactics is to use words until the victim snaps, then claim to be in the right because they didn't "initiate violence".
Remember that bullies are experienced sociopaths. Teachers are often socially inept or cowards or both, so they will side with the bully because they are socially inept and fall for the sociopath, or because they are cowards and expect less trouble from the victim than from the sociopath.
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Exactly correct. Children are not adults, just smaller and with less knowledge. That was society's idea of children when we were total know-nothings. Their brains are not fully developed, specifically the evolutionarily late the part of their brains which can process real morality- your frontal cortex, which represses, transmutes, modifies and finally governs the other more primitive parts of your brain- the amygdala especially. The amygdala is well developed in children and is the center for aggression,
Re:This (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's turtles all the way down! :-)
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One set of parents did not teach their daughter how to deal with bullying, nor did they monitor her social life. Words *do* hurt, if one doesn't know how to handle bullying. We are not born with this ability.
Two sets of parents did not monitor their daughters. Not only could this protect the daughters from abuse/predators, it should've stopped the girls from abusing the victim.
Re:This (Score:4, Informative)
While we like to think of ourselves as strong and can just decide 'it does not matter', people also have a rather bad habit of taking whatever they went through and assuming that other cases are as easily dismissed. I have seen some very strong people taken down by systematic harassment over an extended period. They knew how to 'deal' with bullies, but similar to how knowing how to walk is of limited utility when one has a broken leg, situations can be worse then what can be simply shrugged off.
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Well from what I understand the way to deal with bullies is to actually fight them. Were these two girls so much better fighters? This girl should have just kicked their asses and then no more bullying. Of course usually bullies pick on weaker victims they are confident they can best in a fight, but I haven't seen any evidence of that here. Even in those cases you can always just pull a knife and stab them a few times or just hit them in the face with a sharp rock. Problem solved. No one will ever fuck with
Re:This (Score:4, Insightful)
What you need is counseling.
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I tried fighting back, several times, and it just made matters worse. Bullies don't fight one-on-one, they come in packs. It wouldn't have mattered if I had trained with Bruce Lee, when there are seven or eight of them you're going down. Then the next day books and homework end up in the snowbank and your pants get ripped, because it's still seven or eight to one and now they're pissed off.
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Yeah. That can happen, but it's not always the case. When I was a kid, at least where I lived, it was considered dishonorable to gang up on someone. You'd be considered kind of a pussy if you couldn't fight one on one. So it could work some of the time if the bully has a sense of pride in showing that he can best you in a fair fight and not just with a group of friends helping him. Not that there is much you can do without a weapon and once you pull out a weapon you raise the stakes and all bets are off and
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this used to be the solution that worked well for millennia. Now the anti-violence zero-tolerance groups have squashed school fights to such a degree that this other problem is now unchecked. I would rather my child get suspended and send another kid home with a broken nose or limb than internalize the problem over and over until they snap, either internally (suicide) or externally (columbine).
Re:This (Score:4, Insightful)
Girls are verbal in their bullying. Guys are physical.
So IOW girls don't get bullied. Instead they get teased, insulted, and taunted and socially excluded by the more popular girls. Well guess what? Guys also get teased and taunted and insulted and socially excluded. Is it still bullying when that happens to a guy? Using the word 'bullying' to represent both physical intimidation and teasing is confusing. I suspect the confusion is intentional and politically motivated. It's an attempt to get around the first amendment and try to make certain kinds of speech that you don't happen to like illegal.
Look. I don't like people who tease other people either. I think they are assholes. I've never teased anyone in my life. But if we are going to put everyone who has ever teased someone else in jail we aren't going to have many people walking around in the outside world. If we are going to put everyone who has ever insulted someone else in jail then pretty much everyone would be in jail. I'm sorry, but that is just not the kind of world I want to live in.
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:4, Informative)
Why did they fail in doing this?
RTFS!
They knew their kids were doing it and let them continue.
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, lets rant about how prissy the 12 year old girl was for taking her own life. Because we all know 12 year olds (girl or boy) are capable of handling things like an adult should, in your perfect world.
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I struggle with the concept that bullying someone amounts to a felony. We have some very skewed laws when bullying someone is equivalent to armed robbery, and deserves 5 years in Jail. (Florida)
It is wrong, but it trivialises harder crimes.
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:4, Interesting)
1. It's a cowards way out that rewards the tormentors
I was just thinking about that. With it being more and more common to "bust" bullies and actually send them to jail, that dynamic might change. Committing suicide may become a true act of revenge against the bully, which will of course encourage people to commit suicide.
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:5, Insightful)
It is wrong, but it trivialises harder crimes.
Not if the punishment is commensurate with the harm caused. With regard to armed robbery, as long as that was the only offense, the impact of the crime is of relatively short duration. It is theft of property under threat of violence. Assuming you can get over being threatened with violence, it's just theft of property, and the impact of the loss of that property (assuming total loss) to an individual is really a minor impact in the overall lifetime of the individual. Bullying can be threats of violence against an individual (like armed robbery), except it also often involves continued harassement, literal violence, and an implication that the threats/violence/harassement will continue, day after day, with no real way out.
Think of a kid who goes to school, maybe it is only once a week he is cornered and detained, physically attacked, perhaps robbed, and harassed. He lives in in a state of perpetual paranoia and emotional pain because he knows that it IS going to happen again, because it has happened many times before. Contrast that to someone mugging you on the street for your wallet. Frightening, maybe costly if you had much cash, and that moment might bother you for years to come.
I've survived an attempted kidnapping (age 11), and I've also been bullied (Ages 7-13). With regard to the kidnapping attempt, I can remember that the guy had curly hair, and the general gist of his conversation, I remember curling up in fear after he fled. But that's about it, I never really worried that he might be back or that I'd be kidnapped again. Yet for the bullying, I can remember every single person who was involved, their actions, their names, their faces. I'll withold their names, but I remember the one who would secretly punch me whenever the teacher turned away. I remember the one who would attack me in the stairwells. I remember the one who threatened to cut me for defending myself from another bully (his cousin). I remember the general taunter in my 7th grade Literature class. I remember the one who would punch me in the back during 6th grade science class. I remember the group who would gather during recess and select a person for 'Random Beatdowns' which were a staple in my school until they finally broke a kid's arm. There are more, but I think the point is made. One of the more vile ones died young, another is incarcerated for murder, none really amounted to much, but I still remember them, and I remember the absolute fear that I had in going to school because it was a place where there was no safety, and no means to defend yourself. Fight back, and you get punished, and the gang mentality kicks in and the bullying increases. (If you think fighting back is an option, you never went to an inner-city school, the only way out there is to 'gang' up, which of course, isn't really a good option).
The point is, here I am, 30 years later, and I can remember the fear, anxiety, fake sickness to avoid school, poor performance, and all of the other aspects of the bullying. But the kidnapping? It's a minor footnote in my memory, a story I tell from time to time when it suits the conversation. But if 30 years later I can pick up the newspaper and glance at an obituary and remember that he was the same guy that made my life hell for several years, I think it helps illustrate that the impacts from bullying are lasting because unlike something like being robbed, bullying isn't a one-off event and can persist for years.
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't about the speech being offensive or not, it is about people not having the capability to retreat from the speech.
The best example I can give as to why this is not an attack on free speech is this:
Situation 1: A person on a soapbox with a megaphone in the town square.
Situation 2: A person on a soapbox with a megaphone following you to school, at your locker, in your classroom, in the hallway, at recess, on the bus.
At what point do you propose that speech transitions into a felony akin to armed robbery? How do you make that distinction?...
In a manner similar to how we deal with most other forms of harassment. If the person asks you to stop, or reports your behavior as harassing, and you do not stop, that makes it a situation where you have to make an explicit attempt to violate the request that you stop. It takes an active step on the harrasser's end after they have been notified that their behavior is unwelcome.
If bullying-leads-to-suicide is a crime that justifies 5 years, does bullying-without-suicide justifies 1.5 years? I think not.
I don't see why we shouldn't consider lighter sentences for situations which result in less harm inflicted.
If you get drunk and push someone and they fall and break their arm, that's battery.
If you get drunk and push someone and they fall and break their neck, that's manslaughter.
In both cases, the act was the same but the harm of that act was different. If you bully someone, and they commit suicide, and someone else bullies another person to the same extent, but that person doesn't commit suicide, perhaps instead of worrying that that other person got 'lucky' maybe you should reconsider engaging in reckless behavior. It is reckless, because you can't know the possible repercussions before hand. But again, punishment commensurate with harm is not a byproduct of an unjust system just because the same action can cause variable amounts of harm.
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:5, Insightful)
WILL NOT stand by and allow someone to be punished for speaking something that I find offensive. I don't care if it offends you, it's not your right to avoid offense.
There is another distinction that you are missing. When it comes to bullying, the speech isn't necessarily "offensive", it isn't said with the intent to "offend" the victim. It is "harmful", it is said with the intent to cause "harm" to the victim. As with most legal cases, intent is important. If it can be proven a bully engaged in speech with the intent to cause harm then that bully could be prosecuted, not for his speech, but for his intent. If it the harm can also be proven, as in this case the suicide of the victim, then the charges/sentencing can be increased. They may have only intended to harm the victim however the death of the victim was the result, they are now liable (or partially liable) for contributing to that death.
Now, in case you are talking specifically about the offensive facebook post, then you must also look at it another way. The facebook post amounts to a confession, a confession of intentionally causing harm to the victim (bullying) as well as the acknowledgement that it led to the victim's suicide/death. Furthermore, it is a confession of no remorse for the effect that was caused by the bully. Even if she has no intent for her speech to lead to an acutal suicide, when she was faced with the fact that it did, she was not remorseful of her actions. Given these facts, she should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and given no leniency in sentencing.
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A small exercise: Consider what your conclusion would be if you changed the words from "being mean" to "harrassment."
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah...I have a hard time seeing felony charges for "being mean".....
These girls were horrible, but they didn't kill the other girl, she killed herself.
Abuse is abuse, whether physical, emotional or psychological. Of the three, the scars of physical abuse are the easiest to heal. It wasn't too long ago that women were sent back to their abusive husbands because there weren't physical signs of the abuse. Usually, they stayed until they were killed by their abuser or their own hand or they killed their abuser, in which case they usually went to jail.
These cases are far worse than somebody "being mean." Bullying in these cases are an act of violence and until people get that, violence against weaker individuals will continue.
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which is what I'm guessing you're trying to do with using a 'legal" term like harrassment.
Why the scare quotes? Harassment has a very specific legal definition, punishment, and course of action [oregonlaws.org] (note that this is for my home state. Other states may vary.)
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:5, Interesting)
"Yes, lets rant about how prissy the 12 year old girl was for taking her own life. Because we all know 12 year olds (girl or boy) are capable of handling things like an adult should, in your perfect world."
I thought 12 year olds weren't allowed on FB, I'd sue FB, they have more money.
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:5, Insightful)
You really think she killed herself because she thought people would think better of her, and that mourning a dead daughter/friend encourages suicide?
Personally I can only begin to imagine what her grieving parents are going through. The posts above show that bullying doesn't have a short-term impact for many of its victims. Often they remember it for the rest of their lives. Some will go through years of counseling. Others will never reach their potential as a result.
I don't for a second believe this girl took her life because she had some long-term plan as to how people would look at her. I strongly suspect that in a moment of despair she sought an escape.
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:5, Insightful)
"Now for a side rant. Suicide is a pussy way out. No one should commit suicide over the actions of another but if they feel compelled to give that other person that much power, they should take them out in the process. It would likely make the world a better place as a result of their cowardice."
Let's hope this is the dumbest thing I see on the internet today
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:5, Insightful)
You are lucky. You probably did never feel like there is no escape but suicide.
Do you know what it is like to be bullied at school? Think of it as being mobbed at your work place without the opportunity to quit. You HAVE to go there. Every single day of your life. You have to go there, knowing for a fact that you will be bullied, maybe beaten up, without anyone or anything stopping your tormentor in any way. Unless you happen to have parents that somehow help you (which pretty much is limited to them teaching you to fight back dirty and teaching you how to avoid teachers to notice it, because everything else is at best a joke... and good luck having parents that teach you THAT), you will not have anyone fighting on your side. The school is the very LAST entity that had any kind of interest in helping you. Worse, you fighting back is against their interest. As long as the bully has you as a punching bag and you keep your mouth shut, the school is happy because there's no problem for them. Do not expect a school to help you in any way. Expect them, though, to punish YOU if you dare to fight back, because then they have a real problem at their hands, because that can easily escalate to a point where external entities will notice something.
So imagine you're in that spot. Unable to quit. Unable to avoid it. Fighting back means being punished, first by the school and, depending on your parents, by them as well (because you're not the "good son" anymore they so love to present around, you're the "bad guy" that got expelled from school now, ya know?). And looking forward to graduating you notice that it's about as far away as you getting into school, which is pretty much a lifetime for you as a kid of 12. To put it into perspective for you, think of it being chained to your work place until retirement, with mobbing and beatings every day.
Maybe this gives you a moment of an idea what it could be like, and why some kids view suicide as their only escape. It has nothing to do with being a pussy. It's simply that it is the only way out left to them.
Re:And I blame my parents (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing is, bullying is NOT unacceptable for a certain subset of parents. I remember the father of one kid giving his little monster advice on how to beat up my friend, while forcibly holding me back from interfering. Parents of popular and/or rich kids frequently ignored mistreatment of the kids of their 'social inferiors', all the way through high school. I doubt things have changed that much for the better since then.
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Now for a side rant. Suicide is a pussy way out.
That's a common meme for people that don't know the psychology of suicide. Suicide generally takes a fair bit of strength of character. The problem is not being "a pussy" or "taking a pussy way out" - it's an unfortunate evaluation, often from wrong premises. A common one is that a bunch of psychological or life situation issues are permanent/long term, while they are usually possible to change. Another is overestimating how much the person is a burden to other people in their lives, and wanting to light
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If you're proud of your little comment here, you should probably get tested for ASD.
I work with autistic children, and yours is the most ignorant comment I've seen in weeks. You say that GP's "comment was merely meant to offend and had no merit whatsoever"? Pot, meet kettle.
Re:This (Score:4, Insightful)
Please take my advice: don't.
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Re: This (Score:5, Interesting)
Kill yourself. Drink some bleach and die. Now. Do it now. Now. Now. Now. Uh. Did I just commit a felony?
It's interesting that in this age of near-universal anonymity that people take pride in being arseholes. Do you take similar pride in being stupid? Do you proudly walk around saying "Hey, if I'm unable to perform simple arithmetic that's your fault"? Hmm? But here you (and others) are, proudly going around saying "I'm unable to fit into society and live by its rules, and anyone who faces the fallout... well, it's their fault for being thin-skinned and not my fault for being stupid..
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Well they had to try to get her for stalking because there actually aren't any laws on the books against "telling someone to kill themselves" or "relentlessly teasing" or "being impolite". I highly doubt there was actually any real stalking going on. Stalking is when you sit waiting outside someone's house and follow them around everywhere they go. That's why the (then controverisal) stalking laws exist. To prevent that particular behavior. Using those laws to go after these little girls is absurd and a per
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Stalking is when you sit waiting outside someone's house and follow them around everywhere they go.
It's not:
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0784/Sections/0784.048.html [state.fl.us]
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Wow. That's scary. Florida could put half the world in jail with that law. My state has no such insanity yet. Yet another reason not to live in Florida I guess. Notice how "cyberstalking" is specifically mentioned. That is a recent law. Not one of the controversial new laws from the 90s that I was referring to.
Until some point in the 90s it was perfectly legal to sit in your car outside your ex-girlfriend's house all day and then follow her around everywhere. I don't really see how that can be extended to t
Re: This (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how /. has truly grown up from being the "Voices From The Hellmouth" crowd to the "waaah, poor baby can't handle a little teasing" crowd. It's the classic "fuck you, got mine" but for advancing through life rather than up the income ladder. Where's the line for deserving sympathy, or even empathy? Does she have to shoot some classmates and THEN kill herself? Does she have to play video games first, and do people have to make that a public issue?
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I love how /. has truly grown up from being the "Voices From The Hellmouth" crowd to the "waaah, poor baby can't handle a little teasing" crowd. It's the classic "fuck you, got mine" but for advancing through life rather than up the income ladder. Where's the line for deserving sympathy, or even empathy? Does she have to shoot some classmates and THEN kill herself? Does she have to play video games first, and do people have to make that a public issue?
I've been wondering myself. These past 15 years have changed the general tone on the net. It has become much more selfish and callous. And yet we wonder if a 14 year old is selfish and callous on the net?
If OTOH you refer to the brow-beaten bullied nerd we all claimed to be 15 years ago then I'm sorry. The internet has now become simple enough for anybody to use. Evidently you don't even have to be literate to use Facebook.
Re:This (Score:5, Insightful)
People who are prone to the real suicide are much more quiet about it than some drama queens who are shouting "I'm going to kill myself!" several times a day. Well, the same thing with the real homicide, too - even as adults we are prone to exclamations like "I swear, I'm going to kill that guy!", but these exclamations do not correlate with the real murders so often, right?
It is truly a challenge for any parent to admit that there is something wrong with their kid (not mentioning some crazy hypochondriacs and the like), be it a suicidal or sociopathical motives. In this particular case I personally would put more blame on the parents of the bullies, than on the parents of the victim. At least with sociopathy there are often other signs that are hard to miss, and often there is something wrong with the whole family - abusive or neglectful parents, for example, or some other emotional disfunction.
Re:This (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cracked.com/article_15658_the-ten-minute-suicide-guide.html [cracked.com]
People should read that article.
You are likely correct. People i know of that has actually commited suicide hid their plans until they did it. I don't know a bunch of people who did it, but of the 4 or 5 over the last 45 years who have, we never really saw it comming. The one suicide that the person constantly claimed they would, was actually shot and killed buy a cop who responded to her threat of suicide. Of course no one thought she was serious about killing herself but the cop that saw the knife she was threatening to slit her wrists with.
Re:This (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, the cop who was called to stop her from harming herself shot and killed her because she had a knife. A lot of people were pissed over that. Some of the cops were even outraged as they had dealt with her before and knew she wasn't a threat to anyone but herself. She had mental issues and had done the attemped suicide thing a couple times before.
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In Internet shorthand it began “Yes, ik” — I know — “I bullied Rebecca nd she killed herself.” The writer concluded that she didn’t care, using an obscenity to make the point and a heart as a perverse flourish.
...suggesting a blatantly sociopathic personality and the likelihood that it was far more than just "teasing" in the first place.
The "coping skills" you advocate would- in this case- consist of figuring out a way of ruining the evil bitch's life.
Re:This (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of trying to arrest children for teasing each other parents need to pay attention to their kids.
Teasing is not the same thing as relentless humiliation on a day to day basis.
The girl is 14 fucking years old and doesn't give a shit if her actions potentially led this girl to suicide. If you don't think that failure is directly related to her parents choices then you are a fucking dolt. Normal people don't have this kind of emotional detachment to society, especially not at the age of 14.
Re:This (Score:4, Informative)
If you'd read the article you'd see that they DID take her to get medical and psychological attention.
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The two main reasons that someone would contemplate suicide is to get attention and to punish someone who injured them.
What a piece of crap. The three main reasons are mental illness like depression which makes their life too painful to live, mental illnesses that stop them from experiencing life as it is and makes their life seem too painful to live, or f***ing bastards and bitches like the one this article is about who make someone's life too painful to live.
Taking a kitchen knife and stabbing the bitch would have worked wonderfully to get attention and punish the person who injured her.
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Since you're both basically yelling "You're wrong!" at each other and neither one of you has been blessed with an abundance of facts on this topic, I shall dispense some now;
First, let's start with the definition. Sociopathy is a constellation of behaviors, not any one behavior, and you need to exhibit varying degrees of the majority of them for this to be true. Amongst others, these behaviors are: "failing to conform to society's rules, deceitfulness, impulsiveness, reckless endangerment of self or others,
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If these bullies think it is amusing to crack jokes about the fact that they bullied another girl to death,
then something in their minds is deeply wrong.
Some kind of intervention is needed, or they (or others like them) will do it again. And that would be a shame.
Re:WRONG (Score:5, Insightful)
What is appalling about people like you, 'Dogtanian', is that you are cowardly enough to beat up on children for behaviour you PRAISE in adults.
Hmm. I really don't recall saying of those things I allegedly endorse. I must have been very, *very* drunk at the time.
Or maybe you just felt free to shovel great masses of alleged opinions into my mouth because I'm a proxy for America.
America almost universally praises its genocidal butchers in UNIFORM as heroes [..] When this happens, people like 'Dogtanian' applauds the system
Sorry, I thought I was applauding the Rolling Stones tribute band that was playing that night, but I inadvertantly faced the wrong way and applauded the Republican convention.
that not only allows so many men and women to get away with the worst forms of Crimes against Humanity unpunished, but encourages them to rejoice in their crimes forever afterwards. [..] cowards like Dogtanian attack them and label them with the moral deficiencies they themselves have. [..] The USA is almost unique on the planet in having a "blame the child" mentality. The USA is one of the tiny number of countries on the planet that executes children and disabled people. The USA is almost unique in REFUSING to sign UN conventions giving children RIGHTS. The USA is unique amongst nations of the West in allowing children to be subject to BDSM rape at school disguised as corporal punishment. The USA is almost unique in allowing parents to kidnap their 17-year-old daughters, and force them into extremely abusive facilities where they can be stripped and examined against their will, forced into nappies, monitored as they use the toilet, with no justification other than this is what the parents desire (you think I exaggerate- go Google 'Hephzibah House', a facility still running today where ALL these things happened).
Sorry; when I signed that petition, I was assured it was just something about providing mittens for kittens. I knew it looked a bit long. Also, I'm afraid that I was very, very drunk [youtube.com].
But seriously... glad to have been a nice little whipping boy / strawman to let you get that rant out of your system.
If you actually want my opinion, I'm just as disgusted by much of that stuff as you are. (Much as it pains me to "agree" with you). I just happen to have a low tolerance for sociopathic bullies that push people into killing themselves- picky, I know- and something of a desire to see them get back exactly what they dished out.
You're the purest example of someone who- faced with another person who says something they don't entirely agree with- feels free to ascribe any and all opinions held by *all* his/her enemies to that person, regardless of the evidence, and do so in the most sanctimonious, self-righteous manner. I've come across several on Slashdot, but you're certainly the worst.
People like 'Dogtanian' show why America is so sick.
Know what's actually funny? After that anti-American rant, I have to tell you... I'm not actually American. Never even been there.
:-P
I think at this point, I'm entitled to say... you utter fuckwit.
Yeah, right ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most parents can't or don't monitor what their kids do on the internet, and most parents are under the belief their child is a little angel who would never do something like this (or consider it to be 'normal' childhood stuff).
I suspect most parents do not have the kind of control over their kids this sheriff thinks, and likely aren't that interested anyway.
From what I've seen, most parents are either clueless or turn a blind eye to the fact that their kids are rotten little bastards.
Re:Yeah, right ... (Score:4, Insightful)
FTFY
Re:Yeah, right ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, right ... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Most parents can't or don't monitor what their kids do on the internet, BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO LAZY"
FTFY
Re:Yeah, right ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have put lots of effort into monitoring my son's internet usage... I started with a socks5 proxy and a crowdsourced whitelist/blacklist.. He figured out how to bypass proxy settings. I've tried legislation... I've even set up my cisco switch to duplicate packets from his network port (and the wifi basestation) to a packet capture host filtering on his traffic... By the time he was 10 years old; he had learned how to disable dhcp and give himself a static address. He'd learned how to disable the proxy. He'd broken in to the neighbors wifi access point to bypass my network completely. He's not trying to do anything nefarious (that I know of); he's just a problem solver... If the firewall is a problem, he'll solve it. He's 12 now. If we take away his computers, ipad, ipod, cellphone, etc... He finds them in the middle of the night... We've reverted to education about the dangers and pitfalls. Ultimately, it's better to teach your child to make smart choices than to micromanage and microlegislate them... I'm not saying my son is smarter than I am, I'm saying he will find a way to get around whatever obstacles I put up... Every child is unique. I have friends with kids who happily stay within the constraints of 'parental controls' settings. My son got past those when he was 8.
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Why does your kid have a computer, ipad, ipod, and cellphone? More specifically, why do you continue to let him have them after he's repeatedly rebelled against you? Have you tried selling all of them and disconnecting the internet from your house, then reintroducing them when he's learned to behave?
Parenting is only affective when you're consistent.
Re:Yeah, right ... (Score:5, Insightful)
their kids are rotten little bastards
Or, possibly, the parents are big rotten little bastards.
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Re:Yeah, right ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, no, they can't beat the kid senseless. Mommy and Daddy would have a nice visit from the cops if they did it, and the kids bloody well know that.
Ever seen a parent negotiating with their child to try to get them to do something? One gets the distinct impression that a lot of kids wield a lot more power than their parents do, and the parents try very hard to beg, plead, or bribe their kids into doing something.
I've seen a lot of parents who apparently can't control their 5 year old -- by the time those kids are teenagers I suspect those same parents have very little ability to control them.
So, no, I'm not entirely convinced that the parents wield nearly as much authority as you believe.
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But that's still a failure on the part of the so-called parent. If you can't outwit a 5 year old, you have no business trying to raise one.
Re:Yeah, right ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Haha, I threatened to call the cops / child protection services on my Dad once. He simply said "Go ahead. I'll beat the shit out of you until they get here."
Guess who won that standoff.
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I think you really mean "negotiates from weakness". Negotiating with your kids actually teaches them a great deal.
Editors, please. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Forget social media. If this child was persistently bullied at school and a teacher saw it and didn't report it that teacher could be fired
and arrested. Teachers and school staff have a legal duty to report abuse and illegal harassment of students.
Nothing is more evil than..... (Score:5, Insightful)
....a Early teen girl.
And yes this is 100% fact, I raised my daughter though the hell that is Midddle school and high school, Satan himself is a nice guy compared to teenage girls and the heartless crap they do to others.
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Re:Nothing is more evil than..... (Score:5, Informative)
Aaron Swartz (Score:3)
This too shall pass. (Score:4, Insightful)
I am 30 years old. I remember a pre-WWW world (I deliberately say WWW to differentiate from chats, BBS etc, which was largely inaccessible to all but the greasiest of geeks). I have grown with the technology, and know its potential and pitfalls. My parents however have no idea of either. They got all my hand-me-down computers, they appreciated my efforts to educate them. Because I was around fro the pre WWW, analogies were easy. I knew how the postal system worked, I could easily analogise POP mail etc. But they do not know the full potential. They look up their recipes, history of [subject] info, and IMDB pages, harass and embarrass me on fakebook, but they never really matured with the technology, and never had to suffer the pitfalls. It was just suddenly there, and they shat bricks, because it was like nothing they had ever seen, and they didn't understand the dynamics. They adapted, but never understood.
I feel as my generation become the parents and out kids hit those preteen/teen years (maybe 10-15 years), the problems will go away, because we will be capable of not only being able to give good advice on troll evasion and shaming, but we will also be in a far better position to adequately monitor, and mentor, about what actually happens on the internet. We know what to look for, we know how to find it, and we know how to deal with it. Not all of my generation are savvy enough to do it, but a greater percentage of us are, as compared to the current crop of 40-50 year old who had this thrust on them by their kids demanding internet connections and fondletoys to use on them.
I feel for that girl, and her parents who were blindsided by and lost a child to a technology they had to scramble to understand. I feel for the parents of the aggressors for not knowing just how serious the shit their kids were doing. I hope and feel that my generation will be more capable than them.
I can now get arrested for NOT killing somebody?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Well at least it looks like they are only going after them for stalking, and not for murder or not caring that she died on a FB post.
Unfortunately, the death is sure to increase the sentence.
Good (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm noticing a lot of "waah, little baby can't handle a little teasing" posts. This is /. -- who wasn't mercilessly picked on in junior high/high school??
I'm a new parent of two kids and am not looking forward to helping them navigate the new Facebook bullying world. One of them is a girl too, so I'm sure it's going to be worse for her. I think the bad thing about it is that those of us who really got a lot of abuse in school would be able to go home and tune it out. With cell phones, Facebook and all that stuff, you can't ever escape.
One thing I do see a lot of lately is a backlash against PC and just being nice to people. Not being an ass isn't PC, it's just being a good human. Parents should teach their children this, but unfortunately no one is giving out parenting licenses (yet.) I think that would be a big help in solving the behavior problems of kids -- reining in their idiot parents. (And no, I'm no super genius parent, but watching typical 7 year olds having a screaming match with their parents complete with creative expletives makes me wonder whether I'm doing something right.
2013 and people are as terrible as ever (Score:3, Insightful)
People defend bullies and call a 12 year old suicide a "coward." It disgusts but does not surprise me:
1. ... that people want bullying to be considered protected speech. ... that the bullied are expected to physically beat down their tormentors or else they must deserve what they get. ...that some poor child that is so desperate that they kill themselves is branded a coward.
2.
3.
Human society will always raise up the violent and support their efforts to eliminate the weaker members as if we're all animals and need to cull impure genes from our species. We are no more advanced than we were 2,000 years ago, just a loose collection of intelligent, slavering beasts in business suits and yoga pants.
Re: (Score:2)
Right?
Right?!?
Given that it was posted on Facebook, I'm not sure about it being "personal," but this story certainly involves government thugs.
Re:Why all this governmental intrusion? (Score:4, Insightful)
And yes, I do get off on looking at those blacked-out lines on partially de-classified documents. My horrible secret is now known.
Re:Why all this governmental intrusion? (Score:5, Insightful)
but I have no problem with the government spying on my communications and seeing what porn I watch
Then you're ignorant about the importance of privacy.
the only problem I have is with how this information is used.
Given the sorts of governments we've seen throughout history, it would be foolish to believe that the information would not be abused.
Re:Why all this governmental intrusion? (Score:5, Funny)
You have a redaction fetish? The FOIA must be like mail-order porn to you.
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And yes, I do get off on looking at those blacked-out lines on partially de-classified documents. My horrible secret is now known.
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Sure, if the police got the facebook post via an illegal search. If it was a public confession of a crime or a private confession was reported to the police by one the people it was told to, then no.
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Re: (Score:3)
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Re:Rebecca's parents. (Score:5, Informative)
"In December, the bullying grew so intense that Rebecca began cutting herself and was sent to a hospital by her mother to receive psychiatric care. Ultimately, her mother pulled her out of Crystal Lake Middle School. She home schooled her for a while and then enrolled her in a new school in August."
Religion has nothing to do with anything. You either act, or don't. Her parents did what they thought was best. Sadly it didn't pay off.
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Seems like the meaning of the word 'bully' has changed since I was a kid. I was bullied for real. Meaning I was beaten up, as in like physically punched and put in headlocks etc if I didn't obey every order of the bully and not disrespect him at all. Of course I was also teased. For having a big nose. For being fat. For being ugly. Etc. When did 'bully' become a synonym for 'tease'?
It's always been this way. Guys typically bully though force or threats of force. Girls tend to bully though harassment and social ostracization. It's been that way as long as I've been alive and for the most part still that way today.
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I'm going to go ahead and assume that you're a man, because physical violence is generally the way that boys "tease" each other. Girls are entirely different, and your suggestion that word calling is harmless discounts the real pain that so many of them go through.
That distinction aside, I just can't agree that a punch in the face hurts more than being completely socially ostracized. Being unable to participate at all in any of the fun things that go on in your social circles, because you're seen as strange
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the fact that the other child killed herself will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Or perhaps not. Its possible that these two (and in fact all bullies) are sociopaths. This fact is what should haunt them for the rest of their lives. I'm all for giving some kids who get caught with weed or grab a hand full of candy bars a break on their criminal records. But things like bullying that have a basis in some psychological defect, no.